Government and Congress articulate a state of emergency to create aid for truck drivers

The government and the National Congress are articulating the institution of a state of emergency to make it possible to pay aid to truck drivers without risk of infringing the electoral law, according to government officials interviewed by the Sheet.

The state of emergency would be regulated in the PEC itself (proposed amendment to the Constitution) and would remove any fence or restriction provided for in a rule of any nature — including the electoral law.

The legislation prohibits the creation of new benefits in the year of the election, precisely to avoid the use of the public machine in favor of one of the candidates. The only exceptions are programs already running or in cases of public calamity or state of emergency.

President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) is now in second place in polls, behind former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT).

According to people involved in the discussions, the PEC would contain an article to recognize the state of emergency as a result of the impacts of the international scenario on the prices of oil, fuels and their derivatives.

The same device establishes financial aid for self-employed truck drivers in activity in 2022. Expenses to cover the benefit would be made through extraordinary credit, outside the spending ceiling — the rule that limits the advance of expenses to inflation.

as showed the Sheetthe benefit to truck drivers can reach R$ 1,000 per month.

The forecast of the state of emergency is a way for the government to circumvent the need to press the public calamity button to give Bolsonaro legal protection in the creation of aid to truck drivers.

The way out to protect the president before the electoral law had been discussed in recent days within the government and also in Congress.

Within the government, there is great fear that the creation of the benefit represents a violation of the electoral law. Even though the benefit was foreseen in the PEC, a part of the technicians fear electoral questioning, since there is an express prohibition to conduct.

The measure could be used to characterize abuse of economic power by the president’s campaign, in the opinion of some technicians.

Behind the scenes, the institution of the state of emergency in the PEC is compared to the creation of the war budget, a mechanism that paved the way for exceptional spending to combat the Covid-19 pandemic. The difference now is that the text must stipulate a maximum amount to be spent with the help of truck drivers.

The provision would also rule out the incidence of other rules of the LRF (Fiscal Responsibility Law) and the LDO (Budget Guidelines Law) in the creation of the benefit to the category.